[R] Package norm has been removed. What to use for Maximum L

[(Ted Harding)]

On 17-Jul-09 12:12:01, Uwe Ligges wrote:
> Achim Zeileis wrote:
>> On Fri, 17 Jul 2009, Daniel Abbott wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>> I apologize if an answer to my questions is available, or if I
>>> submitted this question incorrectly. I have read the mailing lists,
>>> as well as the R Project and CRAN homepages. However, I may have
>>> missed something.
>>>
>>> I noticed the package 'norm' has been removed. Its page
>>> http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/norm/index.html now reads:
>>>
>>> "Package ?norm? was removed from the CRAN repository.
>>>
>>> Formerly available versions can be obtained from the archive."
>>>
>>> My questions are:
>>>
>>> 1. Why was norm removed? I used the package and found it to be very
>>> useful. Is there a serious error in the package or another problem?
>> 
>> What do you consider to be a serious error?
>> 
>> Typical reasons for removing a package from the active CRAN repository
>> are that the package does not pass CRAN checks and/or that the package
>> maintainer is irresponsive. (norm, specifically, hadn't been updated 
>> since 2002.) This is serious enough to make all automatic CRAN
>> features such as daily package checks and building of binary packages
>> too cumbersome.
>> 
>> But if you do not consider this to be serious, you can keep on using 
>> "norm", it is still in CRAN's package archives. Or, even better, you 
>> could adopt it, fix it, and release a new version to CRAN (although it
>> is not quite clear to me whether the norm's license allows this).
> 
> 
> Oh yes, indeed.
> 
> Please ignore my former message, I haven't looked at the license 
> carefully enough. And since the license is rather special (not
> GPL'ed as I assumed in my message), you cannot take over
> maintainership without negotiation with the former maintainer,
> I fear.
> Best,
> Uwe Ligges

On a point of information: The licence in question:

License: The software may be distributed free of charge and used
         by anyone if credit is given. It has been tested fairly
         well, but it comes with no guarantees and the authors
         assume no liability for its use or misuse.

is verbatim from Joe Shafer's original licence for his NORM.
He used exactly the same wording for his packages CAT, MIX and PAN.
These were originally written in S, with FORTRAN code for many of
the functions. The various people who have ported these to R have
simply copied these words into the R packages. See (if you have
the packages installed)
  library(help=cat)
  library(help=norm)
  library)help=mix)

I may have some comments about this "removed from CRAN" issue later,
but I need to think about them first ...

Best wishes to all,
Ted.



>> (Note that CRAN runs no checks whether the methods implemented are 
>> reasonable or well-suited for the problem they are trying to address
>> etc.)
>> 
>>> 2. If norm should no longer be removed, what is another good package
>>> for ML (maximum likelihood) missing data imputation? I have seen
>>> several recommendations online, but I wonder which one is currently
>>> the "reigning champ."
>> 
>> The "Multivariate" and the "SocialSciences" task views have sections 
>> about missing data
>>   http://CRAN.R-project.org/view=Multivariate
>>   http://CRAN.R-project.org/view=SocialSciences
>> 
>> Additionally, I can recall that there is the Amelia II package:
>>   http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=Amelia
>> and potentially others.
>> 
>> hth,
>> Z
>> 
>>> Thank you very much. I appreciate your time!
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
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>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide 
>>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>>
>>>
>> 
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide 
>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk>
Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
Date: 17-Jul-09                                       Time: 13:38:23
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